The perfect reading list for summer, featuring literary icons, blockbusters, iconic memoirs, romance, mystery and short stories …
Several Irish big hitters released books so far this year. Emma Donoghue – author of Room and The Pull of the Stars – turns her attention to a famous rail disaster in 1895 in THE PARIS EXPRESS (Picador, €27.55). The train to Paris is the setting where Donoghue brings together a cast of characters, including a young boy travelling alone for the first time, a medical student concerned about a fellow passenger and the crew who are more like a family than co-workers. Donoghue tells the story through these and other passengers, and with chapters broken into stops along the journey, the story builds to an unbearably tense climax. As a masterful storyteller, this is a literary thriller that you won’t be able to put down.
Colum McCann’s latest novel TWIST (Bloomsbury, €15.99) follows journalist Anthony Fennell, covering the story of broken fibre-optic cables on the ocean floor. He boards a cable repair vessel in Cape Town, joining a cast of drifters on board. Meanwhile, life on shore goes on while Fennell is trapped at sea, with tensions simmering on board. McCann is an expert storyteller, and this feels like an utterly modern novel in a world that is both alienating and familiar, or perhaps familiarly alienating.
THE GHOSTS OF ROME (Harvill Secker, €15.99) is the second instalment in Joseph O’Connor’s Escape Line trilogy. Following on from 2023’s My Father’s House, which told the story of real-life Irish monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, The Ghosts Of Rome moves the action on one year to 1944. Rome is occupied by Nazi forces and the Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the “Escape Line” group of activists known as The Choir. As she works to smuggle refugees and allies away from Nazi boss Paul Hauptmann, he becomes fascinated with her. Gripping historical fiction from one of our finest writers.
John Boyne brings his elemental quartet to a close with AIR (Doubleday, €18), the final instalment in his collection of short novels tackling the subject of abuse from differing perspectives. We meet Aaron again, now 40, who we met briefly in Boyne’s previous novel, Fire, as a teenage victim of sexual predator Freya. Now, we learn how Aaron’s childhood trauma shaped his life. As he and his teenage son travel back to the island that featured in the first instalment, Water, all of the stories’ loose ends are brought to a close. These short novels can be read as standalones, but there is an extra layer of satisfaction in reading them in order to spot the various mentions of recurring characters and places throughout.
Irish writer Elaine Feeney was longlisted for a Booker prize with her last novel, How To Build A Boat, and her debut, As You Were, won the Kate O’Brien Prize along with many others. Her latest, LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY (Harvill Secker, €16.99), tells the story of Claire, who returns from London to the west of Ireland after splitting up with her boyfriend. When he unexpectedly moves to Ireland for work, she has to reassess their relationship. As always with Feeney, the novel is about so much more than the surface, and this becomes a book that looks at inter-generational trauma, and on a larger scale, the historical trauma of war and how it lives on in a culture. Fiercely intelligent and multi-layered, with a gripping, passionate heroine at its heart, this is a deeply emotional story.
Lisa Harding’s novel Bright Burning Things was a spectacular tour de force that won her success in Ireland and America. Her latest novel, THE WILDELINGS (Bloomsbury, €17.99) is set in Dublin in the 1990s when best friends Linda and Jessica go to an elite university. When Linda starts dating Mark, Jessica notices a change in her and eventually discovers she is not the only one under his influence. Now, years later, the charismatic Mark has decided to write his account of their time in university and it’s up to Jessica to set the record straight.
THE GOOD MISTRESS (Hachette Books Ireland, €15.99) is New Zealand-based Irish author Anne Tiernan’s second novel. Those who fell in love with her gorgeous debut, The Last Days Of Joy, will not be disappointed by this. The book opens with Juliet, who returns home for her childhood friend Rory’s funeral. As far as everyone else knows, Juliet was just an old friend, but in reality she was having a long-time affair with him and he is the only man she ever loved. Rory’s wife Erica is not as perfect as she seems, while Maeve, another childhood friend, is having it all, but tired of doing it all. Tiernan skillfully weaves the three women’s stories together into a highly relatable novel. Fans of Meg Mason will love this.
Eimear McBride’s latest novel, THE CITY CHANGES ITS FACE (Faber, €15.99) has a unique experimental style we have come to expect from the best-selling author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and The Lesser Bohemians. It’s 1995 in London, and Eily and Stephen are in the grips of obsessive new love. Eighteen months later, the couple reexamine the course of their romance as the real world, and their pasts, come crashing in. Intimate and intense, The City Changes Its Face explores a passionate love affair tested to its limits.
MAY ALL YOUR SKIES BE BLUE (Faber, €15.99) is the second novel from Fiona Scarlett, the author of the widely acclaimed Boys Don’t Cry. Exploring themes of first love, loss, regret and the emotional rollercoaster that is growing up, the book opens in the summer of 1991 in Ireland as Dean and Shauna’s teenage romance blossoms. Moving from past to present, the story explores the challenges the two face, together and separately, in a deeply moving narrative that brings the reader along every step of the way. When all seems lost, will they find each other under the same blue sky?
In crime fiction, Andrea Mara returns with her latest domestic thriller. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU (Bantam, €16.99) has a runaway plot that gallops along at breakneck speed to its breathtaking conclusion. The story starts off with your basic nightmare, as Susan accidentally sends a gossipy text about her neighbours’ secret affairs and misdeeds not to her sisters, as she thought, but to the neighbourhood WhatsApp group. It’s shared around social media and when a woman is found murdered, it appears to be a case of mistaken identity … it was meant to be her. Mara excels at taking ordinary suburban fears and turning them into heart-stopping thrillers. The twists are ingenious and addictive.
Cork writer Catherine Kirwan is a name to add to favourites like Jane Casey and Andrea Mara. A solicitor by day, Kirwan has a brilliant understanding of crime and her fourth novel, THE SEVENTH BODY (Hachette Books Ireland, €15.99) is inspired by a true story about the discovery of six skeletons on a building site. When a seventh body is found, a Detective Garda is determined to find the truth, but she’s as intriguing as the plot itself; a fully formed character barely holding her personal life and career together, as she tries to solve the case.
Former lawyer and author of the Inishowen Mysteries Andrea Carter has just published her latest thriller, THERE CAME A-TAPPING (Constable, €15.99). This is an eerie and tense story about Allie, whose boyfriend goes missing while working on a documentary in the west of Ireland. When his car is found at the end of a pier with a mysterious body in the driver seat, Allie has to examine their past in an attempt to come up with answers to her questions.
Wexford author Carmel Harrington’s latest novel THE STOLEN CHILD (Headline, €15.99) moves into new twisty territory that focuses on a missing child. In 1984, a young family is on a Mediterranean cruise when they wake to discover their toddler Robert is missing. Despite a desperate search, their son is never recovered. Forty years later, the pair are divorced and their grown-up daughter is a therapist. When a new client shares a theory about what might have happened to her brother all those years ago, she starts to believe that someone out there has the answers to what became of him. A gripping and clever plot.
Catherine Ryan Howard, author of 56 Days, has earned a reputation for writing thrillers with ingenious twists that you don’t see coming. She’s back with a new thriller, BURN AFTER READING (Bantam, €15.99) which tells the story of the famous cyclist Jack Smyth whose wife has died in a fire. When it emerges that she was dead before the fire started, Jack becomes a suspect and drafts in Emily to ghost write his story and prove his innocence. But nothing is straightforward in a Catherine Ryan Howard novel. Twisty, suspenseful and gripping.
Northern Irish writer Brian McGilloway is best known for his Ben Devlin and Lucy Black mystery series. His latest novel, THE ONE YOU LEAST SUSPECT (Constable, €15.99), is his 13th and takes an agonising moral dilemma as its beginning. Katie lives in a small Derry neighbourhood with her daughter and works in the local pub where she has a fling with one of the married barmen. She refuses when a couple of mysterious heavies try to force her into informing on her boss’s brother, a shady character. But when they increase the pressure, she’s faced with an impossible choice. McGilloway is a masterful mystery writer and his storytelling is such an easy pleasure. Beneath the pacy storyline are acutely insightful observations into everyday life in post-Good Friday Northern Ireland.
Several debut authors, generating much anticipatory attention, released their novels earlier this year. Roisín O’Donnell’s debut, NESTING (Simon & Schuster, €15.99), tells the emotionally involving story of a Dublin mother of two daughters who is leaving an abusive marriage. This is both intensely emotional and intellectually intriguing as it seamlessly moves from living in fear of a partner to examining the Irish housing crisis and legal system.
Cork author Amy Jordan’s debut thriller THE DARK HOURS (HQ, €15.99) is a compulsive read about a vivid new character in detective fiction. Retired detective Julia Harte is trying to have a quiet life after a career dedicated to solving crime. But she is still haunted by a tragic incident in her past. When a new murder has echoes of a serial killer case that Julia worked on, she is drafted in to help detectives solve the case. A very satisfying read.
Irish-based South African author Mary Watson is already a well-known young adult author, but makes her move into adult fiction with THE CLEANER (Bantam, €15.99). This is the story of Esmie, who comes to Ireland looking for answers and revenge after her brother’s life is upended by a mysterious incident. Esmie gets a job as a cleaner in the small enclave of houses where her brother had been renting a room and sets about digging up dirt on the neighbours. This is a gripping pageturner that skillfully explores obsession and privilege, money and class, and female lust and rage, and the monsters that might lurk inside all of us.
Another highly praised Irish release, THE BOY FROM THE SEA (Picador, €15.99) is the debut novel from Garrett Carr, better known as a non-fiction writer and Creative Writing teacher at Queen’s University Belfast. This book has been generating a lot of buzz, with justification. It begins in 1973 when Ambrose Bonnar, a fisherman in a small fishing community on Ireland’s west coast, finds an abandoned baby on the beach. He adopts the baby, calling him Brendan, and the story follows Ambrose’s family over the course of two decades, exploring how Brendan’s arrival affects not only the lives of Ambrose, his wife Christine and their son but the changing local community too.
Sligo writer Elaine Garvey has been tipped as an Irish talent to watch and having read her debut novel THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT (Canongate, €21.75), set in London in 2002, it’s easy to see why. Mairead is a 20-something from the west of Ireland working in a wardrobe department in a theatre in London. Garvey worked in theatre in the UK, so the book is full of rich detail. The story is jam-packed with vibrant characters, from the exploitative producer to the narcissistic leading man, an avuncular doorman and supportive co-workers to the alcoholic boss. Mairead is conflicted between her timid personality and relaxed English mores, her loneliness as an immigrant and a desire to live life to the full. When Mairead returns home for her grandmother’s funeral, she has to make a decision about her life. This is an impressively insightful and beautifully written debut.
Sarah Maria Griffin makes her adult fiction debut with EAT THE ONES YOU LOVE (Titan Books, €10.99) and talk about arriving in style. Set in a shopping centre, it tells the story of Shell, who is down on her luck. She has split up from her fiancé and is back home living with her parents. When she sees a “help wanted” sign in a local florist’s she decides to go for it. She develops a crush on the owner, the beautiful Neve, but she’s not the only one with a growing obsession for Neve. At the centre of the shopping centre (and this story) is an orchid named Baby, who happens to be carnivorous and has designs on Neve. This is totally original, escapist and charming.
Louise Hegarty’s debut novel FAIR PLAY (Picador, €15.99) is an impressive locked-room mystery along the lines of the Knives Out franchise. Abigail is throwing a murder-mystery party for her brother Benjamin and has hired out an old house for the occasion. The night is filled with champagne, friendship and heartbreak. In the morning, everyone wakes up … except Benjamin. Cue the arrival of the famous detective Auguste Bell, who puts everyone under suspicion.
Another Irish writer, Gethan Dick, has published her intriguing debut novel with the prestigious Tramp Press. WATER IN THE DESERT FIRE IN THE NIGHT (Tramp Press, €16) is about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and a charismatic Dubliner seeking sanctuary.
Following on from his 2022 memoir All Down Darkness Wide and his collections of poetry, Sean Hewitt’s debut novel OPEN, HEAVEN (Jonathan Cape, €16.99) is a beautiful coming-of-age story about two teenage boys in rural England, exploring sexual awakening and desire as well as the human need for love. One of my favourite contemporary writers, Hewitt’s writing will stop you in your tracks.
THE NAMES (Phoenix, €16.99) by Florence Knapp is the buzziest debut of the year so far. It asks the question: can a name change the course of your life? In 1987, Cora gives birth to a son but has been prevented by a storm from registering his birth. Which means she has had time to think about what her son should be called. Her husband wants her to follow family tradition and call their son after him. Her daughter wants to call the baby Bear, and Cora wants to give her baby a chance to forge his own path, by calling him Julian. This book explores all three possible lives, asking what is really in a name. Original and emotionally rich.
My book of the year so far is DREAM COUNT (4th Estate, €23.20) by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie’s novels Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah made her a literary superstar and now, ten years on from her last novel, she returns with Dream Count. Much has happened in that decade, not least a global pandemic, and that is where this story begins. The book’s opening sentence sets up the central question of the novel – how well can we be known by another person, and how well do we know ourselves? It tells the story of four closely connected women: Chiamaka is a wealthy travel writer living in America; Omelogor is her cousin, a finance whizz in Nigeria; Zikora is a successful lawyer and Chiamaka’s best friend; while Kadiatou is Chiamaka’s cleaner, who is raising her daughter in America. All four women face challenges that force them to confront themselves. Nobody writes quite like Adichie, who has the combined gift of being able to write beautifully and also tell a story as if she is speaking it directly into your ear.
Five years ago, Jeanine Cummins enjoyed global success with her blockbuster novel, American Dirt. Now Cummins returns with a new saga, SPEAK TO ME OF HOME (Tinder Press, €20) which explores the idea of belonging via three generations of one family. Rafaela grew up in San Juan and married Irishman Peter, before they moved to the American midwest to make a new life with their children, Ruth and Benny. Ruth now lives in New York, while her own 22-year-old daughter Daisy has returned to San Juan in search of “home”. Cummins brilliantly unfurls all three women’s stories, creating an utterly believable tale of what home and family really mean and what it means to belong, all carried along with tension and suspense. As emotional as it is insightful, this is a big, sweeping story of family and identity. Put this one aside for your summer holidays.
BROKEN COUNTRY (John Murray, €14.99) by Clare Leslie Hall has been generating a lot of buzz, not least because it has been picked up for adaptation by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine. The story was inspired by the author’s family’s relocation from London to an old farmhouse in Dorset. The novel tells the saga-like story of Beth. Beth was 17 when she first met and fell in love with Gabriel. When Gabriel left, Beth thought her life was over. But life moves on and Beth eventually builds a new life on a farm with Frank, and their son. But then Gabriel comes back and all the old feelings come back too … This is a love story and a thriller – irresistible. Read it now before it hits your screens.
Ocean Vuong started life as a remarkable and lauded poet (Night Sky With Exit Wounds won the TS Eliot award, making him the youngest recipient and only the second ever poet to win the prize). His debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous won him legions of fans. His latest novel THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS (Jonathan Cape, €20) tells the story of 19-year-old and his relationship with an elderly woman, who stops him from jumping off a bridge. Through his relationship as her carer, Vuong explores ideas of family, love and American life and values. Vuong’s language and imagery is drop-dead gorgeous.
Daunt Books is one of my favourite publishers, consistently offering exciting new voices and its latest, DARK LIKE UNDER (Daunt Books, €15.95) is the debut novel from English writer Alice Chadwick. Set in 1980s England, the book deals with the fallout of the death of Tin’s favourite teacher, Mr Ardennes. Tin is the fiery character at the heart of the novel, who is both loved and loathed in school. Her boyfriend Jonah and her best friend Robin come swirling into the mix, making this story a perfect encapsulation of late adolescent intense emotions, along with loss, loneliness, betrayal and grief.
Fans of Margaret Atwood will love THE DREAM HOTEL (Bloomsbury, €16.84) by Laila Lalami. This is a piece of dystopian speculative fiction from the Pulitzer and National Book Award shortlisted author. Set in a recognisable near future, it tells the story of Sara who is on her way home from a work conference when she is pulled aside by the Risk Assessment Administration at the airport. She is told she will be detained because her dreams have alerted them that she is at high risk of committing a crime. She is transferred to an all-female detention centre (a prison really) and held there, initially for three weeks but her stay is extended for minor infractions. Lalami uses the story to explore the dangers of technology and what we might be sacrificing for convenience.
BEARTOOTH (Granta, €18.75) by American author Callan Wink tells the unexpectedly gripping story of two brothers on a poaching trip in Yellowstone National Park. Wink lives in Montana himself and is a guide on the Yellowstone River. Tense and gripping.
Hallie Rubenhold topped the Sunday Times bestseller list with her book The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack The Ripper and repeated the feat with her latest book, STORY OF A MURDER: THE WIVES, THE MISTRESS AND DOCTOR CRIPPEN (Penguin Random House, €25), which looks at the lives of the women involved with the infamous medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. In 1910, performer Belle Elmore disappeared from her home in London. Friends in the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild demanded an investigation, which led to an international manhunt for her husband, Crippen. He had set off for America with his young lover, Ethel le Neve. Through an impressive wealth of research, Rubenhold puts the women of the story front and centre; reasserting Belle’s place as the victim in this infamous story, and not the domineering woman she has been cast as by history. The book reads like a page-turning thriller with a huge cast of characters, from police investigators and lawyers to showbiz performers, journalists, judges and even Winston Churchill.
Jojo Moyes became an international phenomenon with her 2012 book, Me Before You, which sold 21 million copies and was later made into a film. Her latest book, WE ALL LIVE HERE (Michael Joseph, €13.99), is one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I’ve had in a long time. It tells the story of Lila, an author who has written a book about how to have a perfect marriage like hers. Unfortunately, Lila’s husband has been having an affair with one of the mums from her children’s school and now she has to see her every day on the school run. Newly separated and trying desperately to sell another book so she can keep up with her bills, she is also in mourning after the death of her mother, and her stepdad has also moved in! When Gene, her absentee, famous TV actor father, shows up unexpectedly looking for a place to stay, the house suddenly feels very cramped. In the midst of all of this, Lila is searching for some remnant of the woman she used to be and attempting to re-enter the dating world. The book is genuinely heartwarming and uplifting. At times I wept very satisfying tears, at others I laughed out loud. It’s a joy to read such an expertly calibrated book by a writer at the top of her game.
Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Anne Tyler is back with her 24th novel, THREE DAYS IN JUNE (Chatto & Windus, €15.99). The story has a deceptively simple set-up – Debbie is getting married, which brings her divorced parents Gail and Max together for three days in June. In anyone else’s hands this would be a simple, nostalgic story, but in Tyler’s fiendishly clever hands the story becomes arch and questioning, pushing the reader to face their own prejudices and beliefs about monogamy, fidelity, family, friendship and ageing, while also being a meditation on love and tolerance. A truly lovely novel that manages to avoid sentimentality thanks to Tyler’s wicked wit and sense of humour.
Part one of a two-part series, LOST SOULS MEET UNDER A FULL MOON by Mizuki Tsujimura (Doubleday, €17.99) is a Japanese novel that has sold over a million copies and has now been translated into English for the first time. Set in the suburbs of Tokyo, the novel sees five troubled characters looking for a reunion with the person who changed their lives. The catch? They’re all dead. Meaning Ayumi, the Go-Between, a teenager with a gift for connecting the living with the dead, is their link. With each heartbreaking reunion, clues are scattered for readers to piece together the truth behind him. Tsujimura explores the complexities of human relationships and the power of second chances in this captivating novel.
Charmaine Wilkerson is a Caribbean-American journalist and author whose debut novel, Black Cake, was a New York Times bestseller in 2022 and has since been adapted into a Hulu series produced by Oprah. Her latest novel, GOOD DIRT (Michael Joseph, €21.99) is another multigenerational family story which follows the Freemans, one of the few Black families living in a wealthy suburb of Connecticut, New England. At age ten, Ebby discovers her brother has been fatally shot following a break-in at their home. Twenty years later, she escapes to France after a break-up, only to be met with the surprise appearance of her ex-fiancé and his new girlfriend, as secrets of the past begin to be revealed.
Emily Henry has made her name writing big vibrant love stories like Beach Read and Funny Story. Her latest, GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE (Penguin Viking, €16.99), sees two writers vying to tell the access-all-areas biography of a famously reclusive heiress. Alice is convinced this is her big break, but she’s competing against the moody Pulitzer-prize winner Hayden Anderson. Sparks fly.
Bestselling author Rachel Joyce’s latest novel THE HOMEMADE GOD (Doubleday, €20.42) has the kind of opening that makes you shelve all plans for the foreseeable future. When ageing world-famous artist Vic Kemp summons his adult children to lunch, he drops the bombshell that he is about to marry a woman he has just met, and who is also 50 years younger than him. Six weeks later he is dead and his children must travel to his summer house in Italy to settle his affairs. Fans of Liane Moriarty will love this family drama.
Danielle Giles’s debut novel MERE (Mantle, €20.59) is a captivating story set in a convent in 10th-century Norfolk. Cut off by a large lake or “mere” the nuns make do with what they can. When the mere takes a young servant boy, the convent is gripped by fear and suspicion and a belief that a curse or the work of the devil is to blame. The arrival of a new sister brings much upheaval too. Told from the point of view of the convent’s nurse, Hilda, the book is hugely atmospheric and examines the panic that fear and ignorance can sow.
Kit De Waal gained an immediate following for her brilliant debut novel My Name Is Leon, about a young boy taken into care. Her latest novel, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (Tinder Press, €16.99) returns to similar themes. Paulette is engaged when tragedy strikes and she’s thrown onto a new trajectory. Life goes on and soon she becomes a mum, determined to give him the best of everything. Her attention is divided when she notices a neighbourhood child whose mother is nowhere to be seen. A beautiful story about community, friendship and love.
In non-fiction, Diana Evans, bestselling author of Ordinary People and A House For Alice, releases I WANT TO TALK TO YOU: AND OTHER CONVERSATIONS (Chatto & Windus, €21) a collection of literary essays and interviews; some old, some new and previously unpublished. Charting her career as a young journalist to published author over the course of 25 years, it’s a memoir of this writer’s journey, weaving together a conversation on literature, art and music, fashion, identity, grief and everything in-between.
Joan Didion fans have been patiently waiting for the publication of NOTES TO JOHN (4th Estate, €23), a collection of notes she wrote in 1999 about her sessions with a psychiatrist. These were found after her death and focus on subjects of alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt and her relationship with her adopted daughter, Quintana. The sessions also saw Didion questioning her legacy or, as she put it, “what it’s been worth”. The book offers a rare insight into one of the most enigmatic literary giants of our time.
It’s no surprise that Colm Tóibín has written the introduction to this new edition of Henry James’s WASHINGTON SQUARE, published by Manderley Press. Tóibín is an expert on James’s life and work – his Booker-Prize shortlisted novel, The Master, was all about the life of Henry James – and in this new introduction he re-examines how James’s childhood home on Washington Place influenced the setting for this novel. First published in 1880, the book has been adapted many times, including for Broadway in the 1940s, and it was choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev for the Paris Opera in 1985. Bound in cloth and published on high quality paper, it’s an object of great beauty.
THE THREE LIVES OF CATE KAY (Bloomsbury, €23.75) is the debut novel from American Emmy-award winning sports journalist Kate Fagan, which captivated me from the first page. This is a fictional memoir of the world’s most famous author, who left her home town after her best friend was involved in an accident. When she discovers everything she thought she knew about that time is untrue, she begins to tell her story in three parts – a love story, a story of fame, and a story of friendship, identity and betrayal – each with a different perspective, which results in a gripping, multi-layered story. I fell in love with these characters and didn’t want the story to end. Perfect for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Sam Blake’s latest thriller THE KILLING SENSE (Atlantic Books, €16.99) is a tale of many twists about a single mother who has left an abusive marriage. When Kate Wilde from Ireland wins a trip to Paris in a competition she can’t remember entering, to spend five days learning about perfume, it sounds like the perfect escape. But soon after she arrives, she not only learns her ex has followed her there, but that there is a serial killer on the loose in the city whose victims are red-headed women like her. Dramatic and gripping.
Author Sanam Mahloudji left her native Tehran during the Islamic Revolution, moving first to LA where she grew up, before relocating to London. Her debut novel, THE PERSIANS (Fourth Estate, €20.70), was the subject of a five-way auction. It follows a wealthy Iranian dynasty, under pressure to adapt to a changing world. Told through the voices of five female family members across three generations, who are living between Iran and the US, the story moves between 1940s Iran into a splintered 2000s. Each woman in the family makes discoveries about themselves and their history when an annual family trip goes wildly awry.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS (Michael Joseph, €21.75) is the ninth thriller from Gillian McAllister, whose works includes best-selling novel Wrong Place Wrong Time. Her latest book is about a woman whose husband takes three people hostage. It’s Camilla’s first day back at work after maternity leave, her daughter’s first day at nursery. Her husband Luke is nowhere to be seen and the only trace of him is an unfinished note. As the day unfolds, news reports announce a hostage situation developing in London. Soon after the police arrive to the scene, she learns that Luke – doting father, successful writer and eternal optimist – is the gunman. She recalls the note he left behind that morning, and the clues it might hold.
The second novel from the author of Bellies is an exploration of millennial angst, race, trans panic and the allure of domesticity. DISAPPOINT ME (Doubleday, €21.25) by Nicola Dinan tells the story of 30-year-old Max. When she falls down the stairs and wakes up in hospital alone, she’s left questioning who will care for her and vows to make changes, including an attempt to embrace good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Enter Vincent, a man with his own history. His friendship group may as well speak a different language, and his Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, but he cares for her in a way she’d long given up on. Will the ghosts of his past eventually sabotage their happiness?
Exploring themes of family loyalty, personal freedom and the isolation of immigration, CONFESSIONS (Viking, €15.99) by Catherine Airy opens with the testimony of Cora, who becomes a teenage orphan when her father dies in 9/11. Moving between rural Ireland and New York, the story pieces together a family’s secrets across three generations. Threaded through these female perspectives are excerpts from a mysterious game, and letters, from which a picture of this family’s mysteries – of motherhood, abortion and adoption – gradually emerges.
MRS SPY (Head of Zeus, €16.99) by MJ Robotham is a lighthearted spy novel with a twist – its secret agent protagonist is a widowed single mother with bunions. When she meets a Russian agent, she discovers a chilling secret. If you liked Netflix’s Black Doves, you might enjoy this. Good fun.
Curtis Sittenfeld made her name writing political blockbusters like Rodham and American Wife, and has lately brought her skewering intellect to romcoms with no less enjoyable results. SHOW DON’T TELL (Doubleday, €16.99) is her new collection of short stories that explores women’s lives where love and ambition clash. Sittenfeld also returns to an old character, Lee Fiora, who appeared in her 2005 novel, Prep. Here, Lee returns for a school reunion and has to contend with her memories of an incident that happened while she was in school. Always clever, always sharply observational, always worth reading.
TWENTY-TWENTY VISION (Lilliput Press, €15.99) is a new collection of short stories by revered Irish writer Mary Morrissy. These interconnected stories feature a handful of characters who offer meditations on the realities of moving into a later stage of middle-age and looking back with regret. Deeply wise and insightful, and beautifully written with unforgettable characters.
TO AVENGE A DEAD GLACIER (Lilliput Press, €15.95), is a striking debut collection of short stories from Irish writer Shane Tivenan, who won the RTÉ Francis McManus Prize and John McGahern Award. The stories are unequivocally Irish in tone and spirit, full of glinting humour. A new talent to follow.
Irish visual artist Daniel Holfeld captures the architectural progress of Morocco since King Mohammed VI ascended the throne in 1999, in Contemporary Morocco, Building A New Vernacular Architecture (Gandon Editions, €33). Featuring 30 notable buildings and near-completed projects from across the kingdom’s twelve regions, showcasing the work of Moroccan and international architects, the book highlights the innovative design and developments that shaped modern Morocco.
